Why are consumers buying cars at a solid pace if they aren't shopping in a lively manner at Wal-Mart and Target? Despite warnings up and down the retail sector, the National Automobile Dealers Association is sticking by its prediction for 15.4M vehicles sold this year while today's reports on Feb. sales (GM, Ford, Chrysler, Volkswagen) don't look half-bad in the face of higher payroll taxes and the looming sequester. Analysts think fresh products and a need to replace the older gas-guzzling fleet of cars in the country are behind the sector strength. [View news story]

perhaps zero down and zero interest for XX months has something to do with it? Wait til the loans start non-performing, again... Uncle Sam to the rescue!

LinkedIn (LNKD+3.1%) and OpenTable (OPEN+3.8%) jump out of the gate after Wunderlich starts coverage with Buy ratings. Also, Evercore's Ken Sena has raised his PT for LinkedIn to $200 from $160, arguing it should trade at multiples comparable to those of cloud software plays Workday and ServiceNow, and that of Salesforce shortly after its IPO (ed: the valuations of those firms have been criticized). Sena' reasoning: LinkedIn's subscription streams, addressable markets, and margin leverage "renders traditional earnings valuation metrics less meaningful." [View news story]

Market recap: The Dow and S&P 500 closed at five-year highs amid a rally in financial shares, led by BofA, and upbeat earnings reports from Avon, Fossil and Michael Kors. Techs lagged, as Apple was pressured after Tim Cook failed to provide any indication of a dividend hike. Crude oil gained 0.5% to $97.51, the dollar lost ground vs. the euro and yen, while 10-year Treasurys fell in price to yield 1.982%. [View news story]

Avon, Fossil, and Michael Kors are now holding up the market? wow, time to go All-In, as they say in Vegas...

The news cycle isn't playing any favors for Carnival (CCL+1.2%) as its disabled ship dramatically meanders across the Gulf of Mexico with passengers using social media accounts to graphically describe the dirty and unsanitary conditions of the vessel. Though CCL bulls maintain the mishap is no big deal, Wells Fargo warns the incident could end up costing the company close to $80M in lost revenue, repair costs, and reimbursements. [View news story]

Customer service at it's finest! meanwhile the stock charges towards 52 week highs... surely this is a healthy market!?

LinkedIn's (LNKD) Q4 earnings are due out after the bell, with analysts expecting that EPS climbed to $0.19 from $0.12 a year earlier and revenue 66.6% to $279.5M as the firm continued to grow its hiring-services business. "We believe the company's focused and calculated approach to expanding the recruiting and marketing product portfolio is laying a great foundation for highly leverageable growth," says Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster. [View news story]

Isn't that the same clown who had a $1000 PT on Apple until it went from 705 to 450?

A Stock That Benefits From The Oil AND Real Estate Boom [View article]

More on Amazon's (AMZN) Q4: The company swung back from its Q3 loss as North America sales rose 23% Y/Y to $12.175B and International sales gained 21% to reach $9.093B. Growth in the company's Electronics segment outpaced Media segment sales. Free cash flow decreased 81% to $395M for the trailing twelve month period compared to a year ago with real estate outlays factoring in. For Q1, the company sees $15.0B-$16.6B in revenue and expects profit to fall in a range of -$285M to $65M. A conference call is scheduled for 5:00 EST. AMZN changes direction, now +3.2% AH. (PR) [View news story]

wrong, there are no substantive barriers to entry in e-commerce by definition (didn't we learn this in 2000) hence they will never be able to "manage pricing"

More on Amazon's (AMZN) Q4: The company swung back from its Q3 loss as North America sales rose 23% Y/Y to $12.175B and International sales gained 21% to reach $9.093B. Growth in the company's Electronics segment outpaced Media segment sales. Free cash flow decreased 81% to $395M for the trailing twelve month period compared to a year ago with real estate outlays factoring in. For Q1, the company sees $15.0B-$16.6B in revenue and expects profit to fall in a range of -$285M to $65M. A conference call is scheduled for 5:00 EST. AMZN changes direction, now +3.2% AH. (PR) [View news story]

a premium to what, exactly ....and how much, roughly? please enlighten me as I am fascinated with your analysis so far

More on Amazon's (AMZN) Q4: The company swung back from its Q3 loss as North America sales rose 23% Y/Y to $12.175B and International sales gained 21% to reach $9.093B. Growth in the company's Electronics segment outpaced Media segment sales. Free cash flow decreased 81% to $395M for the trailing twelve month period compared to a year ago with real estate outlays factoring in. For Q1, the company sees $15.0B-$16.6B in revenue and expects profit to fall in a range of -$285M to $65M. A conference call is scheduled for 5:00 EST. AMZN changes direction, now +3.2% AH. (PR) [View news story]

wait until the houdini, i mean bezos conference call, will be @ 4000 p/e by 5:30 pm